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It’s hard to believe that 2026 is already halfway over when New Year’s feels like it was, what, last week? We’re now knee-deep in the RAM crisis, and all sorts of world events (like rising fuel prices) are making living feel like a luxury only a sheikh can afford. Before prices go up further, now is the time to buy the devices you’ve had your eyes on.

We’ve already done lists of cool gadgets under $30 and interesting mini gadgets in 2026. This time, we’re focusing more broadly on portable tech. You’ll find below a list of some of the most noteworthy items we’ve seen so far in 2026, regardless of sub-category or price. We exclusively chose noteworthy items that were released in 2026 and did not include anything that wasn’t strictly portable. Nothing here is ranked from best to worst or vice versa. With that out of the way, here are 16 items in particular that deserve a spot.

Sony makes great headphones with terrible naming conventions. The Sony WH-1000XM6 made our list of the coolest gadgets of 2025. Now, the tech giant has upgraded its premium noise-canceling earbuds, too. The confusingly similar Sony WF-1000XM6 launched in early February.

As is typical, these are some of the best-sounding non-audiophile consumer headphones on the market. The noise cancellation is rock-solid, the battery life goes on forever, and though not perfect, we recommend them for anyone whose earbud budget sits in that AirPods Pro 3 range of roughly $250 to $350. You can buy them on Amazon here for $258.

Items of note include IPX4 water resistance, a 5-minute quick charge (netting you an hour of playback), an upgraded microphone for taking calls, and improved ANC. Although, the difference compared to the previous-generation WF-1000XM5 may be negligible; ANC for earbuds in this price range is already so good that there’s little room left for improvement beyond better handling of human voices. Don’t expect an upgrade to the lackluster app experience, as Adam Doud notes in his review.

We begged Apple for years to upgrade its 2020 AirPods Max. In 2026, it finally did with the AirPods Max 2. A little bit. 

The addition of the H2 chip brought them up to speed with the noise cancellation and smart capabilities of the AirPods Pro, plus latency reductions and improved voice recording. And get this, your $550 cans can pump full, lossless wired audio over USB-C. That’s certainly a much bigger improvement than the 2024 color “upgrade.” Get your own pair from Apple’s Amazon storefront here.

Before you buy them, though, understand that the AirPods Max suffer from what some view as fundamental problems that remain unaddressed: No off button, a case designed by a five-year-old, a poor choice of material for the headband cushion, aluminum cups that are heavy as lead earmuffs, and major condensation issues. We don’t want to suggest here that these are bad headphones, but there is a strong argument to be made for other headphones at or below this price point. The AirPods Max 2, however, are the ones to go for if you need Apple’s ecosystem benefits, like automatic device switching.

Samsung is not one to be left out of the gravy train that is the wireless earbuds business. It did, after all, copy Apple by removing its headphone jack. Its 2026 Samsung Galaxy Buds4 Pro is a direct competitor to the AirPods Pro 3. Samsung boasts the typical spec footnotes, noting a two-speaker bud design, better calls thanks to improved microphones, and next-gen ANC. They also incorporate a fresh new design that distinguishes them once more from previous iterations, rather than going the Apple route of recycling the same look.

Our own Max Miller compared the latest Galaxy Buds4 Pro to the previous three generations and found that while they certainly take the lead in categories where it counts — like noise cancellation — the older-generation Buds still generally hold up well. The Buds4 Pro won’t tilt the scale much if you have the last-gen pair. If you’re not audiophile-level picky, you could comfortably get away with an older model at a good price.

Apple’s AirTags are forgettable in the best way possible. As in, they cost next to nothing in the grand scheme of things — $29 — and once you’ve paired them with the item you want to track, you don’t have to think about them again until that item gets lost. And when it does, they just work. Stacked up against the competition, they continue to steal the show for their reliability, ease of use, and integration into the Apple ecosystem.

The second generation of AirTags released in 2026 shows that Apple had a virtually perfect product. All it could improve upon were the range, UWB precision locating, and speaker volume, all for the same price. Grab a single AirTag or a four-pack from Amazon here.

If you already own an AirTag, it may be difficult to recommend upgrading. The second generation benefits from no further software advantages, and the replaceable battery design effectively means first-gen AirTags can last forever. For frequent travelers and forgetful people, though, that improved tracking might be worth it.

JBL has always made great budget options, and the JBL Go 5 keeps to that philosophy. Similar to its predecessor, the trendy, handheld speaker boasts an upgraded IP68 rating and improved battery life with up to 10 hours of playtime. Two speakers can be paired in seconds by bumping them together — or multiple speakers via Auracast — and the new ambient edge lighting helps further immerse listeners in the music. JBL claims this generation has even better sound, too, which can be appreciated with a new lossless music mode over USB-C.

Surprisingly, all these improvements have not caused the cost to increase

The JBL Go 5 is still priced around the same $50 as last time. Of course, this is a speaker primarily meant to provide background noise during a social event, not reproduce every dulcet tone. Check out speaker brands oriented toward sound quality if you want that background music to have real texture to it.

Before the MacBook Neo, we never dreamed we’d see a MacBook for $600. Now, we can stop dreaming. In some ways, the Neo has unequivocally budget specs, like its 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD. In other ways, it KOs more expensive Windows laptops, with its aluminum chassis, insane battery life, and great keyboard/trackpad combination. And performance. Despite its iPhone chip, the Neo performs far better than anyone expected it to. Think “Cyberpunk 2077” running at almost 60 FPS. Good luck finding a comparable Chromebook.

Naturally, market forces cannot allow a laptop at that price point to come without compromises. The lower-end version has no Touch ID, there’s no backlight on the keyboard, RAM and storage can’t be upgraded beyond 8GB/512GB, I/O speeds are on the slow side, you know the drill. But for most people? This is possibly the best value-for-dollar laptop we’ve seen in this decade, or perhaps ever. Grab it here on Amazon.

When choosing a TV streaming device, your eyes are likely on the Roku, Google TV, or Apple TV options. Amazon’s newest offering, a budget $35 Amazon Fire TV Stick HD, may pique your interest. Amazon claims the new iteration is smaller, faster, and gets rid of the plug-in wall adapter that its predecessor had in favor of USB power. Fire TV supports all your favorite major streaming services like Netflix, Apple TV, and HBO Max. It also finally abandons the thoroughly antiquated micro-USB power cable.

While the pricing is good for what you get, know the caveats before rushing to order one with two-hour shipping. This particular model only supports a maximum resolution of 1080p. Since it’s an Amazon device, you’re stuck with Fire TV OS rather than the Android-like Google TV, so you won’t get Google Cast or Gemini as your voice assistant. On-device storage is also pretty poor at 8GB. It only costs a bit more to upgrade to the 4K version.

Technically, the roughly credit-card-sized Xteink X4 e-reader has been around since 2025. Aside from having no backlight, it had only one major flaw: terrible default firmware. Community-made firmware options like CrossPoint transformed it into a device that’s a joy to have. Then, in early 2026, troubling news started to circulate that the manufacturer would prevent flashing any unofficial firmware to the device. Community efforts to circumvent the block weren’t bulletproof.

Now, Xteink sells a Xteink X4 “Developer Edition” distinct from the previous version. It’s the exact same e-reader, except it’s permissive of third-party firmware. You can purchase it directly from the website or from Amazon for $69. We highly, highly recommend going with this one instead of versions sold on AliExpress, where the firmware might be locked down.

Still, the X4 continues to grow in popularity. It’s the number-one new release in Amazon’s e-book reader category at the time of writing, and reviews generally paint a positive picture of it for what it is. I can personally attest that it’s replaced my wasteful doomscrolling when away from home and gotten me to read way, way more.

Shokz headphones are well-known for being some of the best bone-conduction headphones on the market, and now the company makes great open-ear headphones, too. The Shokz OpenFit Pro is another solid iteration for 2026. Battery life is great at 50 hours total, it’s designed for secure, comfortable long-term listening sessions, and the IP55 resistance rating makes it perfectly suited for a sweaty workout.

One spec-sheet item meant to set this pair apart from the competition is Shokz’s new proprietary Noise Reduction feature, sort of like ANC for open-ear headphones. It definitely doesn’t come close to dedicated ANC — it can’t; that’s just physics — but controlled testing with a binaural rig by This is Tech Today shows it can dampen a lot more than you’d expect. If this sort of open-ear ANC can improve any further, then perhaps the perpetual downside of sound leakage will finally begin to disappear. Grab the Shokz OpenFit Pro on Amazon for $250.

When the iPad Pro M4 released in 2024, it was a massive upgrade for the iPad lineup, even if iPadOS continues to clip the tablet’s wings. The $999 price, only $100 less than the MacBook Air at the time, meant it was squarely for people with a lot of disposable income. The iPad Air M4, released in 2026, brings the still-amazing M4 chip and 12GB of RAM down to a far more reasonable $599. For reference, those are better specs than the MacBook Neo for the same price.

You’d be surprised by how few hardware compromises you have to make when buying this new iPad Air. Even stacked up against the current-gen M5 iPad Pro, the only major missing bits are the OLED screen, Face ID, the thinner design, and fast charging. The rest are niche, nerdy pluses like ProRes and Thunderbolt support. So, you get iPad Pro M4 performance for almost half the price. The benefit of buying from Amazon is that it’s known to give slight discounts compared to the prices found in the Apple Store.

Laicomein Bluetooth 6

0 Transmitter Laicomein/Amazon For the most part, it seems like Bluetooth headphones have won. Smartphones, tablets, and recently laptops have done away with 3.5mm jacks, for better or for worse, but holdouts remain, like airplanes. No one wants to watch a movie on those free headphones — much less when you have ANC at your disposal — so having a Bluetooth transmitter is a must. A promising choice is this Laicomein Bluetooth 6.0 transmitter.

The transmitter supports audio on up to two devices and claims around 20 hours of battery life, plus fast charging. A dual-pronged jack comes included. There’s a focus on low-latency, high-quality Bluetooth audio, though bear in mind that Bluetooth always comes with disadvantages compared to wired audio. Reviews are strong so far. Having said that, a search on Amazon will reveal a smorgasbord of Bluetooth transmitters with higher ratings that cost less; this simply appears to be the best, latest option available this year.

FiiO’s new EH11, released just this year, is for people who adore the retro ’80s vibe of the Koss Porta Pro minus its cables. There’s a whole bunch of fun colors — transparent, off-white, cyan, burgundy, transparent black — and the spec sheet is impressive. Weighing only 92 grams, the EH11 conceals 40mm dynamic drivers, a mic for calls, 30 hours of battery life, and support for multi-pairing, Bluetooth 6.0, and hi-fi codecs like LDAC. In an effort to strike a balance between modern and vintage, the wooden ear cups are actually discreet music control knobs. Audiophiles who want to dial in the EQ settings can do so from the app.

What’s equally impressive is the price. This set of cans sells for $30. It’s ironically less expensive than the wired Koss Porta Pro that it’s arguably a spiritual successor to. Just bear in mind that there’s no ANC here, and it wouldn’t work well anyway with the semi-open design.

GL

iNet Beryl 7 Portable Travel Router GL.iNet If you haven’t traveled with a travel router yet, you’re missing out big time, and the GL.iNet Beryl 7 is an exceptional new option to add to that category. Why? It offers top-class support for dual-band Wi-Fi 7 speeds, 2.5G Ethernet ports, and full WPA3 encryption. Further, it does something you rarely see in routers: it supports OpenWrt out of the box. OpenWrt is the “Linux” of the router world, a free firmware for old routers meant to provide long-term support. So in theory, the Beryl 7 should last for years even if the manufacturer disappeared off the face of the Earth tomorrow.

The Beryl 7 is also marketed towards the tech DIY crowd. In particular, people looking to run their own VPN to access the internet via their home network when away, or to run an ad-blocking server like AdGuard. Do be aware that this is not a travel router with support for a cellular plan; it’s more for plugging into Ethernet (at work, for example) and giving high-speed, secure Wi-Fi to your other devices.

The Apple Watch is an excellent way to aid your health and fitness journey, but it charges you through the nose for the privilege. Apple has plenty of competitors out there that make solid smartwatches for less, especially Amazfit. The company has released multiple new models just in 2026. We recommend the Active 3 Premium. For $170, you get a sapphire-glass AMOLED display, GPS tracking, a 12-day battery life, a full suite of vitals monitoring, and some smartphone-tethered functionality, like making calls. The latter feature is for Android devices, but there is an iOS app if you plan to use this on an iPhone.

Given that this is a new product, there aren’t a ton of reviews yet, but so far they all average out to 4.7 stars. Claims of battery life, brightness, and build quality seem to hold up. Check out Amazfit’s other smartwatch options, like the Amazfit Active Max and the Apple Watch Ultra-like Amazfit T-Rex lineup.

You can find plenty of excellent cheap wireless earbuds, but it’s not all just AirPods and Sony earbuds in the upper echelons. Soundcore’s 2026 Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro sells for $170. Aside from stylish-looking earbuds and a case with a screen, the Liberty 5 Pro puts a lot of marketing oomph behind its Thus AI chip, powering clear voice calls, strong ANC, and snappy voice control commands. Purchasing the Liberty 5 Pro Max for $230 gives you access to the AI note-taking function (which requires a membership that has a free option), a fast-charging case, and a bigger screen.

This may not be all just marketing fluff. Guinness World Records dubbed the Pro variant the “highest speech quality score.” Testing by This is Tech Today shows the earbuds producing clear voice quality in an 85-decibel environment, but that quality drops off sharply at 100 decibels — still impressive, but the marketing says that calls stay clear in environments exceeding 100 decibels.

This CES 2026, JBL showed off its Endurance Zone earbuds in addition to several other models. These are open-ear headphones marketed toward active users, with a sporty, durable design, an IP68 water- and dust-resistance rating, call microphones tuned for loud environments, and roughly 32 hours of playtime. JBL touts its JBL OpenSound technology as giving the Zone great sound without suffering from too much sound leakage. Specs-wise, this is a very compelling set of earbuds.

Again, this is only one of the products in JBL’s 2026 roster, and not the only open-ear pair either. However, not all models could be found on Amazon. Check out the JBL Endurance Peak 4, Soundgear Clips, the Tune series, Sense Pro, and Sense Lite on JBL’s official website. It’s a huge catalog, and our hats go off to any manufacturer that gives customers this many options rather than forcing them to choose between a few premium-priced models.

Every item on this list is a 2026 release you can buy on Amazon; according to manufacturers and early reviews, sales started in 2026. “Portability” was interpreted in a literal sense; a few items (like the Amazon Fire TV Stick) don’t work away from a plug, but can be carried around easily. That aside, the device could be for any purpose.

Since these products are new, we gave leeway to products with review counts that are naturally on the lower end, but aimed for high average review scores. To compensate, many of these products also appear on Amazon’s Hot New Releases pages, suggesting they sell well. This was not meant to be a budget list, so high-priced items are included.